Marketing Midterm Review
Marketing Midterm Review
Marketing Midterm Review
What is marketing?
Marketing is a process by which companies create value for customers and build strong
customer relationships in order to capture value from customers in return.
Marketing management
The process:
- Analysis -> identify external factors impacting the brand.
- Planning -> develop strategic plans.
- Implementation -> carrying out the plan.
- Control -> measure results.
Product / Service
Create a general overview of the (current) product or service, and how it lines up with what the
customer needs.
Situation analysis
What is happening in the immediate environment? Are there any key players that might affect
future company strategy?
What is happening in the external environment? Look through the external forces for relevant
trends and drivers of change.
• Political
• Economic
• Social
• Technological
• Legal
• Environmental (Natural)
Positioning statement
A guide to internal strategy
Ties together top and bottom halves of the marketing plan
Point at which the plan moves from a strategic analysis
to a tactical plan
Competitive advantage
- An advantage over competitors gained by offering consumers greater value than
competitors do.
- To understand competitive advantage then, you cannot just look internally at your own
company – you need to look at your competitors and what they are doing.
Competitive positions
Market leader is the firm with the largest market share.
Market challengers are firms fighting to increase market share.
Market followers are firms that want to hold on to their market share.
Market nichers are firms that serve small market segments not being pursued by other firms.
Competitive strategies
Expanding total demand
• New users
• New uses
• More usage of its products
Protecting market share
• Fixing or preventing weaknesses that provide opportunities to competitors
• Maintaining consistent prices that provide value
• Keeping strong customer relationships
• Continuous innovation
Expanding market share
• Increasing profitability with increasing market share in served markets
• Producing high-quality products
• Creating good service experiences
• Building close relationships
Market challenger strategies
• Challenge the leader with an aggressive bid for more market share.
• Play along with competitors and not rock the boat.
Market follower strategies
• A follower can gain many advantages.
• It can learn from the leader’s experience.
• It can copy or improve on the leader’s products and programs, usually with much less
investment.
Market nicher strategies
Ideal market niche is big enough to be profitable with high growth potential and has little
interest from competitors
The Key to market niching is specialization.
• Market
• Customer
• Product
• Marketing mix
Market research
Different types of research performed by marketers using various methods depending on their
need for information.
Gaining customer insight – Regular market research gives marketers a competitive edge.
Exploratory research - Useful in gaining insights and ideas and is often used to funnel broad
research questions into more precise ones.
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Market research data
Secondary data - information that has previously been collected or published.
Primary data - information specifically collected to solve a current problem.
Information management
When faced with a business problem and need information to assist in decision-making.
Qualitative research
Qualitative research is the systematic use of interpretive techniques to come to terms with the
meaning, not the frequency, of social phenomena.
Quantitative research
Quantitative research is the systematic empirical investigation of social phenomena via
statistical techniques
– Seeks structured responses that can be summarised in numbers
– Ex: percentages, averages or other statistics
– Methods include:
– Surveys - to ask (many people) a question or a series of questions in order to
gather information about what most people do or think about something
– Observation
Sampling plan
Sample is a segment of the population selected for marketing research to represent the
population as a whole.
Consumer behavior
Culture is the set of basic values, perceptions, wants, and behaviors learned by a member of
society from family and other important institutions.
Subcultures are groups of people within a culture with shared value systems based on common
life experiences and situations.
Social classes are society’s relatively permanent and ordered divisions whose members share
similar values, interests, and behaviors. (Measured as a combination of occupation, income,
education, wealth, and other variables)
Personality is usually described in terms of traits such as self-confidence, dominance,
sociability, autonomy, defensiveness, adaptability, and aggressiveness. Personality can be
useful in analyzing consumer behavior for certain product or brand choices.
Needs analysis
- The first stage is Problem Recognition. Analysis of this stage involves understanding
when, where, and how consumers need arise and the situational, social or marketing
triggers that cause consumers to realize they have a problem that needs to be solved.
- The second stage is information search. Analysis of this stage involves understanding the
sources of information consumers use to learn more about the available options.
Understanding social influences is crucial at this stage.
- The third stage is Evaluation of Alternatives. How do consumers make decisions? What
evaluative criteria do they use?
- The fourth stage is the Purchase Decision itself. Where do consumers go to purchase?
What happens in the store?
- The final stage is Post Purchase Evaluation. How do consumers assess whether they
have purchased the right product? How do they evaluate satisfaction? Do they
experience any regrets or doubts?
Information search
External Sources
• Advertising and Promotion
(Sales staff, In-store information, Television, Newspapers, Magazines, Internet, Radio,
Cinema, Outdoor, Direct mail, Mobile, etc.)
• Referent Others
(Friends, Family, Colleagues, Celebrities, Internet users, Newspaper articles,
Magazine articles, Television shows, independent reports, etc.)
• Experiential
Internal Sources
• Long-term memory
(Learning, past experience, past searches, ongoing search)
Understanding Markets
• Segmentation: involves identifying and understanding the needs of particular groups of
customers.
• A market: is a group of potential customers with similar needs, who are willing to
exchange something of value for various need-satisfying goods or services.
What is segmentation, targeting and positioning?
• 1. SEGMENTATION
• Dividing a market into distinct groups of buyers who have different needs,
characteristics, or behaviors
• 2. TARGETING
• Evaluating each market segment’s needs and attractiveness, and selecting one or more
segments
• 3. POSITIONING
- Differentiating the brand from the competitors
- Associating the brand with a distinct/clear image
Market segmentation
Geographic dimensions describe the market in different geographical units such as nations,
regions, states, counties, cities, or even neighborhoods.
Demographic dimensions describe the market based on variables such as age, life-cycle stage,
gender, income, occupation, education, religion, ethnicity, and generation
Psychographic dimensions describe the market based on different lifestyle and personality
characteristics.
Behavioural dimensions describe the market based on behavioural and situation related
characteristics related to the product category and decision